Baltimore vacant homes for $1? Some city council members ask mayor to halt proposal

By Mike Hellgren

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    BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore City leaders are at odds over a new policy to tackle the vacant homes crisis.

Thousands of vacant properties are crumbling and pose safety risks, and some believe a proposal to sell them for just $1 may not be the best solution.

WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren attended an oversight hearing at City Hall on Tuesday where several council members asked the city’s spending board to postpone a vote on the measure scheduled for Wednesday morning.

“There are so many risks and hazards associated with these vacant properties,” said Maurice Brock, who lives in Carrollton Ridge, a Southwest Baltimore community that has one of the highest concentrations of vacant homes in Baltimore. “It’s a definite safety risk for citizens, for city employees and firefighters.”

Three firefighters died in a vacant home in January 2022 that had burned twice before.

Baltimore City leaders say they see the urgency in tackling the vacant home crisis .

More than 13,500 homes in Baltimore City remain vacant. Fewer than 900 of them are owned by the city which tracks them on a dashboard.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is backing a plan to allow city-owned homes to be sold to private buyers for just $1 if the new owners promise to renovate and move in within a year and live there for five years.

Buyers must have $90,000 in funds for the rehab.

There is no low-interest loan program as in a past proposal by the city council president.

Developers would be charged $3,000 and smaller non-profits could purchase the homes for $1,000. Buyers can also purchase vacant lots.

“We are having properties sitting vacant and abandoned, and we know all of the things that come along with that,” the Mayor’s Deputy Chief of Staff told city council members at the oversight hearing.

Several called for a pause.

“We need to hold this up and find out how we make this better and make sure we still include the people who live in South Clifton Park, which looks like a war zone, who live in Darley Park, which looks like a war zone, who live in Broadway East, which looks like a war zone and Greater Greenmount, which looks like a war zone,” said councilman Robert Stokes.

Stokes expressed concerns over gentrification and equity.

Councilwoman Odette Ramos fears nothing will happen to those who buy the homes and fail to renovate them.

“We have 420 properties that are still vacant even though the city sold them and so that also has to be fixed. How do we make sure the enforcement is there if we’re not going to accomplish the goal of being able to get the city to take it back?” Ramos told Hellgren.

She also said a piecemeal approach will not be effective and the policy could hurt the development of entire blocks.

“I don’t want to stymie progress,” Ramso said. “I think we need to do something and we need to do something now, but we need to do it in a strategic way so we can have true mixed-income communities.”

WJZ has covered the issue extensively and spoken to people trying to rehab homes who say they face too many barriers.

In Carrollton Ridge, despite the overwhelming number of vacant homes, Maurice Brock is optimistic.

“They’ve been working on quite a few of these houses and that’s a good sign,” he said.

Brock just hopes city leaders use every tool at their disposal to rebuild forgotten neighborhoods.

“Ultimately, I would like to see people in the community, or nearby communities, have first dibs on the home,” Brock said. “For the sake of rejuvenating the neighborhoods, it doesn’t really matter who takes on the task.”

The new $1 home proposal does not need city council approval.

Councilwoman Ramos is asking the mayor to postpone the spending board vote by two weeks.

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